Just feels like Spring this fine morning. Felt like posting something cheerful.

Shot in digital, edited in Photoshop.

Today is the beginning of a new era. A time of change. A glorious new beginning… Politics aside, we now have a President who understands the power of the internet. As of 12:01 p.m. EST, White House dot gov has a new look.

Powered by some form of ASP, it’s a valid XHTML site. Getting a Microsoft based site to validate is an impressive feat all by itself, but this one is done with style. As well as the usual stuff you’d expect on a government site, they’ve included a blog and photo galleries. Not only included the blog and galleries, but made them the face of the site. Rotating imagery, dynamic content, and enough RSS feeds to satisfy even… me.

I have to admit, I’m rather impressed. Who really knows how the Presidency will go, but I like the start. Neat, clean and very professional looking.  You could almost say, Presidential.

My hat is tipped to the designer. Beautifully done.

I’ve keeping my eye on newspapers and online commenting for a while. Letting people comment on the newspaper like a blog seemed like an interesting idea. My interest was that I thought that newspapers wouldn’t stay on top of controlling spam comments. I was wrong. Where they lost control was with the actual commenters. Without some sort of accountability, apparently people feel free to say anything they want in this sort of forum. Threatening and abusive language, insults, random and profane comments… Apparently it’s all OK, as long as nobody knows who you are. It’s time somebody with a brain took control. This sort of thing doesn’t help anything. You need a moderator, and you need some accountability.

My first thought was that requiring accounts would be my first suggestion. Putting a name to that filth would stamp most of it out pretty quickly. While I came up with one idea, Derek Powazek has has come up with 10 Ways Newspapers Can Improve Comments.

Here are ten things newspapers could do, right now, to improve the quality of the comments on their sites. (There are lots more, but you know how newspaper editors can’t resist a top ten list.)

How long before newspapers start taking these sort of measures? I’m betting it’s going to go downhill quite a bit further at most papers before it gets better. I don’t think the newspapers grasp the negative effects of this sort of thing. Sure their site numbers are going up, but is this the sort of traffic that’s going to make you money? I don’t think so.

The results of a fascinating study of the design of the top 50 blogs is available at Smashing Magazine. Some interesting results, but I was most interested in the ratio of fluid to fixed width layouts. 92% used fixed width. That seemed a little high to me, but I have noticed a strong trend that way in design lately. I was even more surprised to note that the writer describes the other 8% as “uses fluid elements”, but none used “used an elastic layout”.

I’ve always thought that a fluid width layout was a better design solution for most websites. Defining a minimum width for a site isn’t a bad thing, but a full fixed width layout is just too rigid. It doesn’t take the viewer’s preferences into account. You’ll also note that 56% of blogs surveyed used a site width of 951-1000 pixels. I don’t know about you, but that means if I’m viewing the site with my feed reader open, then I have to scroll left and right. Annoying! I’m sure I’m not the only person who dedicates less than 1000 pixels of screen width to their main browser window.

My favorite statisctic though was about the percentage of the layout used for main content.

“on average, 58% of the overall site layout is used to display the main content.”

The most important part of thelayout only deserves 58%? That’s the best you could do? That’s just sad, it really is.

A Small Design Study Of Big Blogs | How-To | Smashing Magazine

It is truly remarkable that among 50 top blogs not a single one used an elastic layout (width of layout grows with the growing font size) and only a small fraction uses fluid elements (layout changes depending on the size of the browser window). Here are the exact findings:

* 92% of top blogs used a fixed layout,
* 8% used a fluid layout or a hybrid layout with fluid layout elements
(Engadget, Smashing Magazine, Gigazine, Coorks and Liars).

Jessica Claire has a new site design. I always love to see a blog merged seamlessly with the rest of a site. Honestly, I just love to see a complete site working seamlessly together, but it’s often the blog that gets left out of the design loop. They’re an afterthought, left on some default theme. Or worse, linking to an entirely different site on Blogger. Nothing wrong with Blogger, but if you’re going to the trouble of writing and maintaining a blog, shouldn’t the improved stats benefit your own URL? There are ways to use Blogger and WordPress.com and still use your own URL.

Back to Jessica Claire’s new site. Seamless is the key word. Red Door and infinet design did a beautiful job putting all the pieces together. I’m a sucker for classic design elements like they’re using in the background and elsewhere. The colors work well for me too.Nicely done. Good luck with it Ms. Claire.

Somebody has a sick sense of humor. I love it. The Web Page from Hell.

A very kind reader of mine just sent me a copy of Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s book, WordPress for Dummies from my Amazon Wish List. This may sound like an odd book to put for a designer to want, but I believe in learning everything possible about my profession, and learning from a recognized expert is the way to go. Even thought I’ve used and designed for WordPress for several years, there’s always something more for me to learn. I’ve just started reading it, but it looks even better than I thought it would be. I’m looking forward to finishing it.

While I continue being too busy at work, run over to The Online Photographer and watch the video of the “Paintball Office” photo shoot. Sure the photo shoot looks long and difficult, but isn’t PhotoShop cool?

Matt Heaton is talking about Microsoft again. It’s not flattering.

Microsoft has done this to themselves because they are either incapable of producing a quality product or they don’t care anymore if their product is great. Either way its not a company I will do business with.

Do you disagree? Show me where I am wrong… I didn’t think so! – Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

I have to agree. Due to client requirements I’ve been using Office 2007 and MS SharePoint Designer a bit lately. Now I can see that 2007 is an improvement over previous versions of Office, but that really doesn’t take much. SharePoint Designer however, is in a whole class by itself. It is far and away the worst piece of supposed design software I’ve ever seen. The user interface is convoluted, the code it produces is crap. I’m really going to enjoy dumping it in the trash when this project is over. I won’t be using it again. I can see some benefit to SharePoint for people who need to collaborate and don’t share a workspace, but that’s the best they could do? I think Mr. Heaton is right, “they don’t care anymore if their product is great.” It’s a shame they’ve managed to corner so much of the computer OS market. It’s time someone took that away from them.

Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Allie is Wired, Adam’s Blog, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

The answer is probably yes, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.

There is a lot of confusion over what exactly an RSS feed is, and how it’s made available. An RSS feed is a simple XML file. As a blogger, you don’t need to know that. They come in one of several (7?) formats. You don’t need to know that either. The benefit of RSS feeds, is that they allow people to subscribe top your content. In other words, it lets people know that you have fresh content, and brings them back to your site. That’s the point you need to know.

Back to the original question. If people can’t find your RSS feed, is it still there? WordPress and other blogging platforms create and update RSS feeds automatically. Most blog themes have the feeds linked in the header in such a way as to notify browsers and feed readers of their presence. If you were to remove those links, intentionally or by accident, your site would appear to viewers as if it had no RSS feeds. The RSS feeds however, are still there. So if your RSS feeds aren’t visible to site visitors, check the header to see if they’re linked properly. It should look something like this:

<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”RSS 2.0″ href=”(your URL)/feed” />

There may be several of these, and the type and file name might vary, but that’s because most blogging platforms offer several kinds of feeds. If you’re looking at your theme files, you might see some PHP in there, so it would look like:

<link rel=”alternate” type=”text/xml” title=”RSS .92″ href=”<?php bloginfo(‘rss_url’); ?>” />

For a good example of an unlinked feed, look at the comment feed in WordPress blogs. It is part of the basic WordPress template, but isn’t linked to the header. So in effect, it exists, but nobody can see it. You want a comment feed on your WordPress blog? Link it to the header, and it will appear to feed readers. There may be a little variation in your WordPress installation, but the feed should be at:

<link rel=“alternate” type=“text/xml” title=“Comments” href=“(your URL)/wp-commentsrss2.php” />

Add that to your header, with your correct URL of course, and it should work.

Why would you want to remove access to your feeds? FeedBurner would be one example. By removing access to the normal feeds, and installing a FeedBurner feed, you direct all subscription traffic to FeedBurner. This allows you to track subscription statistics more carefully.

Feeds, no feeds, lots of feeds, or just one? That’s a question I’ll leave for another day. Until then though, at least you’ll know why they’re visible on your site, or why they aren’t.

I noticed today that I wasn’t getting any comments. IN fact, I hadn’t received any for a couple of days. When I checked my site however, it wasn’t that I hadn’t received any, but that I hadn’t been notified of them. When I upgraded WordPress to version 2.3.1 recently, I stopped being notified of comments, pingbacks and trackbacks. My e-mail account was still working, and my auto site backup e-mail came in just fine, but those discussion related e-mails didn’t come in. Apparently, this is caused by a change in how WordPress handles these outgoing e-mails. The e-mail account it was trying to send them from was wordpress@(mydomain.com). I don’t have an account by that name, so my hosting service (Bluehost) was justifiably disallowing those e-mails. Adding that account at my hosting service, and the problem is solved.

I’d like to say thanks to Double Blind for showing me how to fix the problem.

As the second in my reviews of the Cowboy Code Marshal blogs, I’ve chosen American Truckers at War.

Style
My biggest problem with the style of American Truckers at War is that it needs more. The subject is passionately presented, and the blog theme needs to catch up. That may sound overly negative, but it shouldn’t be taken that way. Blog design should make a statement, and this design doesn’t speak loudly enough.

I like the red white and blue color scheme, it’s totally appropriate for this sort of site. This is one of the elements that I think could be pushed more. More red, more blue. It’s important with any design to present a balanced and unified color scheme, but with a red, white and blue palette, this is even more important. It’s very easy to let this color palette slip into disorder, which will significantly lower the site’s impact. The solution is to carefully control the range of colors used. By keeping the color palette carefully confined, the scheme becomes more unified, making the design feel more organized.

This is a three column site, with a lot of links and images. The site is using twenty one scripts, most of them blogrolls. This has the potential for wholesale chaos when it comes to site organization and structure. Chaos however, is held in check. While the organization could be improved, it is nowhere near as bad as could be. There is room for improvement though. Making an effort here to unify the format of the various blogrolls would pay off with a cleaner look and improved usability.

Most of these blogrolls come with their own image. This is another area that could be a horrible negative, but is at worst a neutral. Making an effort to unify these images in some way would go a long way to cleaning up the sidebars.

One of the things I like about the design is the unified look over all. A common error in this kind of web design is failing to keep the various parts of the site looking like they’re supposed to be together. This site doesn’t make that mistake. The whole site holds together nicely. Defining the sidebars a little more might improve the overall look, but care should be taken not to loose the unification that currently exists.

The sidebars are a too wide in my opinion. They are encroaching on the content a bit too much. While I can see the reasons behind this, a little more width in the content, and a little less in the sidebars would make noticeable difference. This could be done by removing or altering the wide elements which are forcing the sidebar widths. The left sidebar is being forced wide by a single image, which could easily be edited. The right sidebar is being forced by several elements which are more difficult to edit, but it might be worth it to either force this change, or remove those elements. An alternate option would be to move wider elements to one sidebar. This would allow for an increase in the content section, while also allowing for the retention of the wider elements.

Structure
Site structure is reasonable. While there are a number of validation issues which I personally would address, none of them are significant. Most of these issues are the result of a DocType which doesn’t match the HTML coding. Not too serious, but worth fixing. Another issue is some extraneous code that appears to be part of the blog design. This also is insignificant, but would likely be easy to fix.

This blog is powered by the Serendipity Weblog System. While I’m not familiar with this system, it is somewhat similar to WordPress in that it is a PHP based blogging platform which uses themes to control style. It should be a solid platform if executed properly.

This is also a site which uses frames. Not good from a search ability point of view. Frames are notorious for interfering with search engines. In this case it also must be interfering with the ability of other bloggers to link to this site. This is caused by the framset disguising the URL. If you go to the homepage, it shows the URL as www.americantruckersatwar.com. No problem there. If you go to any other page in the site however, it still shows that same URL. I don’t know whether the use of frames is utilized here because of hosting issues or the blogging platform, but I would give some thought towards rectifying this. Removal of frames should improve traffic from search engines, as well as other blogs. If for some reason this change isn’t possible, I’d make a few minor changes to the frameset in order to improve it’s functionality. My strong preference however, would be to dump the use of frames.

Content
Content is what you’d think from a blog called American Truckers at War. It’s always good to have a site’s content match it’s name, and this is the case here. Nothing annoying like a designer’s site called something silly like High Desert Wanderer.

What would I change
I’d unify and amplify. Unify the images, color palette, and blogroll structure, and amplify the style. The various unification schemes would simplify the overall site. It would improve readability, usability, and flow. I’ll clarify the unification points a little bit later, but here’s a short list.

1. Unify color scheme
2. Unify blog roll images
3. More clearly define sidebars
4. More clearly define content sections

A big part of the unification would be to get the various blogrolls with their associated images into some sort of consistent organization.

I’d increase the content section width. I’d do this by decreasing the width of both sidebars. While I’d attempt to keep them symmetrical initially, there’s nothing wrong with asymmetrical sidebars as long as they are neat, clean, and functional.

I’d consider reorganizing the sidebars. Ads on one side, blogrolls on the other is one option. Making the sidebar content more intuitive would be the goal.

I’d amplify the style by adding more red and more blue to the content section. I’d do this by adding color and graphic elements to the individual post template. I’d add more negative space between posts, and increase the size of the blog titles in order to improve flow.

The big change I’d make, would be to the header. This site needs a stronger header. It’s talking about and to truckers, it needs to make a strong and unwavering statement. Some sort of truck or trucking associated image seems obvious, but I’d work with site author to see what would be most appropriate. My first choice would be to use an almost abstract image of a truck. It could be an extreme close-up, or an unusually angled photo. You don’t want to go with a traditional or predictable photo of a truck here. Drama and impact are important, and this is the place for it.

Summary
This review may sound overly negative, but that’s not how I see it. I see the style of this site more as a blank slate than anything. The style current style isn’t a negative, but it’s not as much of a positive as it should be The site structure is much the same way, not a negative, but not a positive enough. This site needs to make a stronger statement.

In some ways this site’s style is being pushed too much by various blogrolls and associated images. They each make a statement of their own, and it confuses the overall style.

The key here is unifying the various site elements, and amplifying the overall style. Easy to say, not always easy to do. However, the improved usability, functionality, and dramatic effect that will come from an improve design will be well worth the effort.

Since joining the The Cowboy Code Marshals, I thought I’d review a couple of the members. To get the ball rolling, I’ll start with the Conservative Cowboy.

Style
I’m not sure what I’d call the style of this site. I have the same problem defining my own site’s style. The idea of cowboys and web design doesn’t lend itself towards any name that doesn’t sound like the punchline of a joke. Cowboy Geek? Techno Cowboy? Those both sound like bad movies from the 70s or 80s. “Classic Western Web Design” might work, I’ll give that some thought. Regardless of the naming problem, the site’s style is distinct. A web site designed for, and probably by, a cowboy.

Christopher uses a fairly simple white on black color palette for the site, and I think that works. This sort of simple color palette can really catch the eye if done carefully. I would consider changing the link style however. Small fonts with red on black can be hard to read, as at the bottom of each post. I’d also consider working more white into the design to break it up visually a little more.

Some key text in this site is highlighted by being made red. Nice impact, but I found it distracting that it was the same color as the link text. Made it look like a link, when it wasn’t. I’d consider clarifying that in some way, so that highlighted text and links can more intuitively be told apart.

This site has a fixed width layout. Nothing wrong with that, though I personally prefer fluid width. Despite being fixed width though, it could still use space a little better. The header for instance could fill the space a little better. The header image has a lot of potential and modifying the layout slightly would use it to better advantage. The twin revolver image at the bottom of each post could also be used to define that space better. By putting an outline around that image, it limits its impact. While these are small changes, they’d make a noticeable difference. That outline is likely an unintentional artifact added by the CSS, but it could be removed the same way.

I like the fact that negative space is considered in this layout. I would adjust that here and there for more impact. A little more space between posts, and a little less between paragraphs for instance, would help the flow.

Content formatting needs to be a little more standardized. For instance most of the content is left aligned, but some posts are mostly centered. This is distracting. I’d also suggest not centering blocks of text, it makes it more difficult to read. As this seems to be most often used with quotations, I’d suggest changing those to blockquotes, and editing the blockquote CSS to an easier to read, but also more distinct, style.

There are two other style factors in this site that I don’t usually discuss. One is music. This site plays country music when it’s loaded. Nothing against country music, I listen to it daily, but I like to choose my own. I’d either remove that option, or make it optional in some way.

The second style feature I don’t often mention is animation. Animation, or any moving objects on a page, are a distraction. While they can be an interesting graphical addition to a page, they should be used with care. A number of objects on the Conservative Cowboy’s navbar move. I’d limit the use of these elements, or eliminate them entirely. Pick one maybe, like the flame’s at the top, and get rid of the rest. I’d also consider limiting the movement of that one item. For instance, instead of an infinite loop, make it cycle for 10-15 seconds, then stop. Another option is to do what is done at the Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir site. Go take a look at that site, then hover your mouse over the Day by Day logo above the cartoon. Notice how it pulses? It didn’t do it for me today, but in the past it’s played music when the animation turns on as well. An interesting alternative to having the animation turned on when the site loads.

My final thoughts on style are that this site has a good start on a great style. It needs some refinement, and it needs to push the style a little more too. Both the simplicity of the color palette, and the cowboy theme elements can be accentuated more, with good effect.

Structure
This site as you can tell is a blogger.com site, and is largely based on one of their themes. Nothing wrong with that. It is a safe and reliable blogging platform. I personally like WordPress better, but that’s more a matter of personal preference than anything else.

I tested the site using WebSiteOptimization.com as I normally do for this sort of post, and I found some interesting things. The first thing that caught my attention when I read the report was load time, which seemed unnecessarily long (289.27 seconds on 56K modem, 103.99 seconds on 128K ISDN). This was explained when I read further. 75 images and 27 scripts. 75 images is a lot for a non-photo blog, but it isn’t unrealistically high. 27 scripts however, is I believe, a new record for me. That’s going to significantly impact load time, especially since they all appear to be pulling content from remote sites.

Images are not without fault here though. While the images placed here are not very large in physical dimension, their file size is unnecessarily big. Optimizing them would go a long way towards decreasing file size and improving load time.

I see a number of validation errors which I’d fix, though none of them are serious. Most everything I’m seeing seems to be a Doctype discrepancy. The document is one Doctype, but the code is written for another. Changing either to match the other should fix the problem.

Font and Center tags are used in at least a couple of locations for highlighting sections of text. A better solution would be to create a few new CSS classes to use in place of these tags. That’s much easier to maintain over time. If the site style changes, the highlight classes can simply be changed to match, while Font and Center tags would have to be updated manually on an individual basis.

Content
The content is exactly what you would think it was from the title. The writing of a conservative cowboy.

What would I change
The first thing I would change would be standardizing the code. Fix the Doctype issue, then replace the Font and Center tags with CSS. From a viewers point of view, this might have little or no effect, but it would allow my next style changes to reliably have global effect.

I’d next adjust the negative space to improve flow. I can eleborate if anyone is interested, but for now I’ll just say that some small changes to the use of spacing will make significant improvements in the flow and readability.

I’d add some white to the overall style, probably n the form of graphic elements of some kind. With a little more white to balance the black, the already strong effect of the simple color palette would be accentuated.

Change the link style to a more readable solution. While the red works good in the main content, in smaller links and bigger blocks of text it doesn’t work so well. The option I’d try first would be to change the link color in the post footer and the navbar. For instance there’s no reason those couldn’t be white with or without an underline. They could be considered of secondary importance to the blog posts themselves, and this color change would reinforce that.

I really like the header image, but it’s not being used as well as it could. I’d change it to better use the space, removing the outline would be a start. I’d also consider changing it’s shape and positioning slightly as well.

I’d change the use of the twin revolver images to better use the space at the bottom of each post. Here again I’d remove the outline, and probably add another graphic element to balance that small image with the wider text blocks above and below. I’d start with adding a CSS line above or below the image, the full width of the text column, to see if that alone wouldn’t balance it. I think that would be enough.

I’d limit or eliminate the flash and animation, as well as making the music optional, preferably with the default as off.

I’d strongly consider using some of the space outside of the fixed width portion of the site. Currently the site floats in the middle of a black page. Depending on the viewers monitor resolution, up to several inches down either side of the screen is empty. This space could be made more graphically interesting using a subtle repeating image of some kind. As you can see, I’m currently using a leather texture on my site to do that sort of thing. On the Conservative Cowboy site I’d do something much more subtle, and more in line with the simple color palette already in use. I would use an image like mine however, in that I’d repeat it either across, or down, but not both. The key here is subtle. It’s very easy to overdo this sort of image and really make a site look cluttered. With this sort of thing you should always try to err on the site of too subtle. Better to have viewers miss it, than overpower them with an image that’s too strong.

Summary
In summary, I like the site. I like its potential even more. It needs a little work, but all sites do. A little structural improvement, a little stylistic improvement, and it will be a stunning site, and easier to use and maintain as well.

Not all sites can use this sort of color palette and style, their content just wouldn’t support it. The Conservative Cowboy however, is one of those sites that will really make this sort of style work. The combination of text and imagery used here is set off nicely by this sort of presentation.

As with all of my Design Review posts, feel free to ask for clarification about any of my comments or ideas. I’ve always intended for these to promote discussions on design, that’s why I write them.

Trackposted to Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, and Shadowscope, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

I’ve been playing with vector scrolling and flourishes for a week or so, and I just noticed a nice tutorial on making them. Very simple. Go take a look at The Twirl Tool / Create Quality Twirls In 3 Steps.

I’m still playing with vectors and photos. Still no idea what I’m going to do with it. The technique I’m using is extremely simple. I’m overlaying the vector shapes and text over the photos in PhotoShop, then adjusting the opacity and layer blending modes. Here’s the latest sketch.

It was feeding time at the zoo in case you’re wondering what this beautiful young lady was looking at so intently. I don’t know about you, but I’d hesitate to open a door if she was looking though a window from the other side.

I recently wrote about PhotoShop blending modes, and I have found a good follow up on that. Go visit Jay Arraich’s Photoshop Tips – Blend Modes for more about the individual modes.

I’m fascinated by the use of vector shapes and script fonts with photos. Inspiration in its vaguest form. I haven’t worked out exactly what I’m going to use it for, but I’ve been playing with ideas. Nothing more than rough PhotoShop sketches so far, but there’s a lot of potential there. Here’s my latest sketch.

Using the word strength may be a bit of a cliché, but this is just a sketch. Besides, Lorem Ipsum looked funny.

Jason suggested in the comments of my last PhotoShop post that I should discuss blend modes and adjustment layers next. I’d hate for anyone to think that I don’t listen.

I’ll use another of my Patoka Lake photos as an example. Here’s the original.

To start with, I’ll briefly discuss blending modes. I’m not an expert on the subject, but I feel comfortable giving an overview. The purpose of blending modes is to alter the way that partially transparent layers interact with layers below them. The normal mode is just that, normal transparency. The other modes aren’t that simple. Not only are they transparent, but they affect the way this transparency is displayed. Lighten for instance compares overlapping colors and chooses the lightest color. It does this for each different color independently, thus in one instance it might use the front color, in another the back. Darken as you might guess does he opposite. Multiply uses the background color and multiplies it times the foreground color. This can do wonders to increase the depth of a flat image if done properly.

Each mode does something a little different. I’d recommend experimentation to see how they work. For my example I took the original picture, duplicated the layer, made a few subtle edits, and set the layer mode to multiply with a 38% opacity. I used a layer mask to keep the altered layer from darkening the shoreline, but let the multiplication effect change the rest. Notice how the color range is richer than the original?

While the change isn’t significant, you can see the potential there.

Now for adjustment layers. Again I’ll use the original image at the top as an example. Lets start with the premise that I wasn’t satisfied with the color range of the photo. I could adjust the color and saturation by working directly with the original image, but why take that risk? Instead, I use one of a number of adjustment layers. This allows me to change the hue and saturation, brightness and contrast, or a number of other attributes without risk to the original image. (Despite this safety margin, always save a copy of the original) The benefit of using adjustment layers is that it is selective. Adjustment layers use a layer mask to control where the adjustments are made. So I can make part of the photo more green and saturated, while using a second adjustment layer to make other parts lighter and less saturated.

That’s not the only benefit though. There is a bonus. Unlike adjustments directly to the primary layer, adjustment layers can be modified again later. Don’t like the hue, change it later. Don’t like the adjustment layer at all, delete it.

Most people think of PhotoShop as a huge and powerful tool, which in some ways it is. The real mastery of it though, isn’t in using it as a graphical sledgehammer. It’s in using it as a feather touch brush. Blending modes and adjustment layers are part of that feather touch. They allow the subtlest of changes, the finest of transitions. Don’t try to do too much at once. You don’t have to do everything with one layer. Add a second, or a third. Add seventeen. Use the tool as it’s meant to be used. Use the feather, not the hammer.

Why is it that radio stations tend to have atrocious websites? While I understand that they’re not in a visual field, you’d think they’d know enough to delegate to someone appropriate. Though I love their radio station, I’ll mostly be handling the review of 94.9 FM Star Country’s website as a lesson in what not to do.

Style
The style of bright, bold, and animated. That’s not a compliment.

The color palette is mostly yellow and blue as you can see from the screen shot above. While I can see a lot of potential with this palette, this isn’t quite working. Too much going on with the color. This will be an ongoing theme in this review. A simplification of the color palette would go along way here. Simplification would help unify the content, making it one page, and one layout, rather than the current series of disjointed and unrelated boxes.

Using blue and red text on a yellow background, as is done below the fold, isn’t helping this overly colorful and overly cluttered layout. Using a little quieter color combination would significantly improve readability.

By animated I didn’t mean lively. I mean there are a lot of things moving on this page. Very annoying. That white box that seems to have the only bit of real content on the home page… that’s animated too. It switches ever 30 seconds or so between three different blocks of content. Limiting the animation used here would also be an improvement.

One of the animated elements used on most if not all of the pages on the site has aspects that I like. The blue banner-like element just below the header. While I don’t think it’s currently working well as one of several moving elements, I like it’s purpose. It lets a viewer know what’s currently playing on the air. It’s a nice touch. I’d either simplify it into a less dynamic, and more text-like element, or change the page layout so that this element works better.

The layout is the biggest problem for me. Essentially this home page is laid out as four column page with a fixed width above the fold. Below the fold it switches to two column. Fixed width might be appropriate here, that’s arguable, but I’ll let it slide. The four column however really isn’t working here. It’s limiting the content to about 320 x 360 pixels above the fold (that’s the animated white box I mentioned above). That’s a lot of wasted screen real estate. Unlike the home page, most of the pages appear to be in a slightly better three column layout. Definitely an improvement.

Structure
I’ll start the structure section by admitting that I am a bit of a snob when it comes to site construction. Let me count the ways.

1. I don’t like unnecessarily invalid code
2. I don’t like ASP, ASP.net, or Microsoft products in general (see #1)
3. I don’t like table layout
4. I don’t like Font tags
5. I don’t like unnecessary use of inline CSS
6. I don’t like overuse of scripts

Taking that into account, there are a number of things I don’t like about this site’s structure. Fortunately, table layout isn’t one of them. The all CSS layout might be overly complex for my taste, but there are no tables to be seen. The other five items listed above do come into play though.

There is what I consider a unacceptable level of invalid code. While most of it is minor, that doesn’t really let the site off the hook. Sure they’re minor errors, but they’d also be easy to fix. Why not do that?

Microsoft and ASP.net rear their ugly heads. This is likely the source of a lot of the invalid code. It’s quite possible that there are very nice sites put together by Microsoft products, but every one I know of is filled with excessive amounts of invalid and extraneous code. From the looks of it, some of this content was also cut and pasted in from MS Word, which doesn’t improve my opinion of the site. In my experience, Word creates it’s own little validation hell. Some versions seem to add more extraneous code than content when you paste directly into an HTML editor.

Font tags are interspersed throughout the site for no reason that I can see. A few simple lines of CSS would allow use of the class elements to do the same thing. Much less labor intensive to change.

There are a lot of instances of inline CSS that I don’t see the purpose of. Using one of the linked style sheets would have been a better choice in most instances. Much easier to maintain, and much easier to change in the future. Eliminating the use of inline CSS and font tags would significant factor in creating a unified appearance site wide. It would also make it significantly easier to update this unified appearance over time.

There are nine scripts running when I tested the page. This seems a bit excessive to me. While I think this is a mistake, they have somewhat improved my opinion of this by using scripts local to their site. Remote scripts are, in my experience, much more likely to cause site problems and loading issues.

Content
The content is what you’d expect from a radio station. Events, calendars, bios of the on-air personalities. A lot of potential for a community radio station. A community the size of Roanoke can really benefit from a resource like this. That being said, I don’t think the site is living up to its potential.

There is also a blog for one of the personalities, which came as a surprise to me when I heard about it. It’s actually a nice addition to the site, though from a structure point of view it needs some work.

Blogging
As you can tell from my site, I’m in favor of it as a rule. It does however, need to be done right. A business should blog in a professional manner, or not at all. Robynn’s Corner is one of those aspects of this site that I think has a lot of potential. The potential for interaction between radio personalities and their listeners.

I think the content of this section of the site is perfectly reasonable, though there should possible be more. The layout needs cleaning in line with the rest of the site, though the header is a little clearer here. Like the main site, advertisers and site navigation need to be separated for clarity purposes. Having advertisers interspersed within site navigation and content is confusing at best.

Here’s what I think would really get this blog going.

1. Convert the blog to a more industry standard blogging platform. This would give you
   • RSS feeds so viewers can subscribe
   • Moderated commenting, registration of commentors is possible
   • RSS feeds for commenting, so fans can follow online conversations if they desire
   • The ability to easily post content in a timely fashion
2. Expand the use of blogging to other personalities who are interested. A group blog for the station rather than individual sub-domains for each personality might work better.
3. Give site authors access to post while on air, though I’d suggest the assistance of an editor
4. A dedicated support person for the blog. Someone with enough web and blogging experience to streamline the process for on-air personalities.

If they’re going to blog, they need to jump in completely. The current blog is more of an almost blog. No comments, not RSS feeds. Not much in the way of timely posting. They need to update the blogging platform with something like WordPress or Movable Type, or don’t blog at all. Bringing in a consultant to train the staff bloggers wouldn’t be a bad idea. A dedicated support person would be better if blogging was to be made a priority.

What I would change
It would be an interesting project. Unification would be my first big goal. One unified site structure, with clean lines and a simplified color palette.

I’d start this unification plan by making the whole site three column.The four column home page is too complex and confusing. I’d top the page with a clearly defined header, no ads. The current use of most of the header for ads space is confusing to the eye. I bump that advertising down to just below the header and above the primary content.

While I like the idea of the live update of what’s currently on-air, that needs to have a little less prominence, I’d suggest the top of the right sidebar. I’d also suggest making it a little less flashy and dynamic. It draws the eye too much currently.

I’d make the sidebars full length. Currently they end where their content ends. I personally find this distracting. Running them the full length of the content section would make for a much cleaner look for the site.

Pick one primary site color, personally I’d go with blue. Nothing wrong with the current yellow and blue, but one needs to take the lead, with one being the accent.

I like the idea of the white text section headers on the electric blue graphic element that is currently being used, but I’d change the execution of that idea. Rather than making the text part of the graphic element, I’d use CSS to make the electric blue element a background image behind white HTML text. Much more versatile to use, easier to maintain. Right the text, apply the style and you have your section marker. You don’t need an image editor to change the text.

I’d build on that blue on blue color scheme. Define the whole page with the navy blue currently being used n the site, and accent it with a combination of yellow and the brighter blue.

Make the primary paragraph text color black, on a white background. Define the headings in blue to coordinate with the basic site structure. Use of yellow wouldn’t be out of line, but not as text or behind text.

Clean the navigation. Currently the left nav bar is breaking in both IE and Firefox, though in different ways. That needs to be cleaned up, and standardized site wide. I’d put all of the site navigation and functionality, searching and so forth, on the left, while shifting all advertisers to the right. The viewer needs to know, intuitively, where to find things. By dividing between advertiser and site resources, we can clean up what is currently confusing.

remove all font tags, and most of the inline CSS. Maintaining a site like this is time consuming, and there’s not reason to shoot yourself in the foot by making it more difficult to maintain.

Summary
My first impression is that this site is cluttered, disorganized, and needs a lot of help. My second impression though, is that while it does miss the mark, maybe not by as much as it might first appear.

• The home page layout needs to be reworked.
• The content is good, though there could definitely be more of it.
• The site is functional for the most part, but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement.
• The color palette is too complex, and needs simplification.
• The site structure needs to be updated.
• The blog needs to be expanded and upgraded, or removed. No half measures

Overall the site has a lot of potential, especially in my opinion, the blog. it is not however, living up to that potential.

While the radio station is wonderful, and I’m a big fan, the site needs to be brought up to the standard that the station has set for its radio shows. If it is, it will become a big resource for the station, and in my opinion, for the community.

Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, , third world county, A Blog For All, , Pirate’s Cove, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.